Being a new addition to TMML (thanks Swanny!) and a not so recent Madness
Fan, I was happy to learn more about the band from the BBC 2 programme, I
found it entertaining and yet very educational as up until 6 months ago, I
considered myself to be an avid Maddie on the strength that I bought a copy
of The Business only 1 week after it was released.
This has proved to not be the case, as I met a vast number of people more
involved with the band than I ever thought possible at the Crunch! gig back
in July.
After such a fantastic night out, I asked Swanny to put me on the list and
my life has been changed forever. I am looking forward to the next Cruch!
gig and as for the Young Guns broadcast, it showed me more of the bands
history than I previously knew.
Anyhow, the Madness chat room is coming around again, and I look forward to
talking to you all then.
'ave a laugh.
John 'Prof' Moriarty
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Peter T
Gardner
Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2000 1:00 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [total-madness] Young Guns
Hello all in Virtual Maddieland,
Well what a feast of televisual entertainment I had last night. Firt off I
watch the mighty Rangers battle their way to the top of their Champions'
League section with yet another win, followed by Madness getting more BBC
airtime in one go than Radio One could afford them for the whole of last
year despite having a top 10 hit! And just for good measure, this finished
in time for me to catch the wonderful Lucy Liu getting all emotional on us
in Ally McBeal! Fantastic;-)
I'm sure few of you care too much for Rangers or Lucy (offlist messages if
you are;-)) so let's get down to Madness. I'm with Mr. Foley, Esquire, on
this one. I was quite disappointed in the whole tone of the show. The
interviews with the band were great. It was brilliant to hear the honest
feelings regarding the split and the resurfacing as THE Madness. It made it
all the more remarkable to think that was all put behind them 4 years later
when they rediscovered the true magic of Madness at Finsbury.
But back to the show. First off, major reeespect to our fellow Maddie Chris
Carter-Pegg for getting a big thanks in the credits. As Vince said, this
man is unbelievable. A walking treasure trove of Madness facts, figures and
goodies. I owe him big time for selling me my prized picture disc of
"Michael Caine". Those that were in the Dublin Castle that day in 1998 know
how much it meant to me. So come on Chris, tell us what a buzz you got out
of helping them out with the programme;-)
However I felt the show didn't do Madness justice basically. Other than the
band interviews it ws very "Dragnet" in style. Just the facts. Very Joe
Friday! And some of the facts were a bit out at that! As mentioned,
Madstock 3 never happened according to the show. Had I dreamt that I was
there? I don't think so. Nightmare, maybe, as I was surrounded by thousands
of English folk singing "Three Lions" continuously for an hour (or was it
ten hours?;-)). Personally I'd rather have seen another half hour from the
Mike Flowers Pops, who do some mean cover versions! Also, according to the
show, in three years Madness recorded 16 hits and 5 albums!!!??? Are you
sure? I know they were prolific but that's going a bit far. "Complete
Madness" wasn't really "recorded" as such, was it? And "Tomorrow's Just
Another Day" was hit no. 15. But now I'm beginning to get a bit Statto-like.
But I felt the whole show played down how brilliant Madness were, and still
are. It was all so superficial. It didn't even begin to scratch the surface
to find out what made them so brilliant and what made so many people love
them so much. Even that guest interview with the journalist, Adrian
Thrills! It didn't seem to me that he really GOT them. I don't expect them
to interview a bunch of fanatical nutters like ourselves but they could
have found some celebs who could sound enthusiastic about what Madness have
done over the years, don't you think? I watched the episode on Spandau
Ballet two weeks ago and they seemed to really bum them up to be a far
bigger band than they actually were. They went on about Spandau dominating
the charts throughout the early 80s. Bollox! They dominated the charts for
a whole TWO singles in the summer of 1983 when they hit No. 1 with "True"
and No.2 with "Gold". And they made out that they had a continuall battle
with Duran Duran. Utter bollox! This was no competition. Duran shat on
Spandau from a very great height. I remember how amazing it was that they
went straight in at No.1 in 1983 with "Is there Something I Should Know".
That was a remarkable thing in those days. Only The Jam ever did it, but
they were strange in that they went straight to No.1 or struggled to make
the top 10!
I digress. So having seen how Spandau were bummed up I felt they certainly
played down Madness' success last night. Stuff like being the first act
ever to have top 20 hits with all of their first 20 singles, spending more
weeks on the singles chart than any other band in the 80s, having the No.1
single, album and video all in the same week in 1982, the phenomenal
success of "Divine Madness" 10 years later, the incredible return to the
top 10 in 1999 with "Lovestruck". That gave me as much joy and pride as
"House Of Fun" getting to No.1, but last night all they said was they
released an album called "Wonderful" but the singles, while classic
Madness, didn't set the charts alight!
Outside of the words from THE BAND, my favourite other bit was down to that
canny Scottish seismologist;-) I loved her story of how the police phoned
up with all the stories of an earthquake in North London in August 1992 and
she took the meaurements and told them she thought it was because of the
Madness concert in Finsbury Park. The police thought she was talking
garbage until the same thing happened again the next evening. The police
called back and said she might have been right!;-) I also found it amusing
when they were discussing Mike leaving. Could Suggs *use* any more words to
say "Well we were mates first and foremost, so we could accept his
decision"???;-)
Ranting over. Sorry for the negativity, but I just felt the show wasn't as
great as a show about the greatest band that ever lived *should* have been.
There have been plenty shows over the years fawning over The Beatles and
what "geniuses" (or should that be "genii"?;-)) they were, which I've never
quite seen, frankly. Last night was the chance to honour real genius and
the magic of Madness, but they failed to hit the mark IMHO.
Cheers for now,
Peter
****************************************************
Dr. Peter T. Gardner
Rowett Research Institute
Bucksburn Tel: 01224 - 712 751
Aberdeen AB21 9SB Fax: 01224 - 716 629
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
****************************************************
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